Match Thread: Newcastle vs Southampton

I suppose there is not better way to rebound from a defeat that crushed one's five game winning streak than to win at Old Tr afford for the first time in 41 years. Any thoughts of, "here goes Newcastle" were put to bed with a solid win last week. Newcastle have a chance to get into the top 4 iof the results go their way this week, but given that one of those results would be Fulham forcing a draw or winning against Everton....I won't hold my breath. Regardless, it shows that Newcastle are very much in the thick of things for European qualification and three points today would go a long ways towards that goal.

Southampton will also be keen on grabbing three points. They aren't far out of the picture either, as a win today would put them level on points with Newcastle (they would, of course, move ahead based on goal differential). The Saints have had a good start to the campaign and they stopped a three game skid with a good looking draw against Manchester City last week.

Newcastle will be without Yohan Cabaye. The goal scorer from last week has accumulated one to many yellow cards and will sit out a match. On this week's podcast, we tipped Hatem Ben Arfa to take his place, but we shall see. Line-ups will be posted an hour before kickoff. (UPDATE: HBA starts on bench, Shola back in the starting XI.

We'll go ahead and open this up in case anyone wants to discuss Manchester City and Arsenal. If you want Newcastle into the Top 4, you'll want to see the Gunners get the win. A draw would mean Newcastle could only achieve fifth.

Heh, "only achieve fifth"....raise your hands if you thought we'd say that phrase this year.

Oh, and place your match predictions in this thread and we'll use this for predictor's league as well. Tell us the score result and goalscorers to get points.

Newcastle United

Position: 7th (26 points)

Form: WWWWLW

Line-up: Krul; Debuchy, Coloccini (c), Williamson, Santon; Sissoko, Anita, Tiote, Gouffran; Shola Ameobi, Remy.

Subs: Elliot, Yanga-Mbiwa, Haidara, Obertan, Sammy Ameobi, Ben Arfa, Cisse.

Southampton Saints

Position: 8th (23 points)

Form: DWLLLD

Line-up: Gazzaniga, Chambers, Lovren, Hooiveld, Shaw, Cork, S. Davis, Ward-Prowse, Rodriguez, Lambert (c), Osvaldo.

Subs: Cropper (GK), Yoshida, Schneiderlin, Fonte, Ramírez, Lallana, Gallagher.